Narra
by Willow-41z
Summary: An excerpt from the life history of Narrala Symestreem: mutant, geneticist, martial arts proficient, hacker, and sometimes troublemaker.
1. Arrival

Author's note: This is the first chapter of a long story about the title character. It's based mostly on movie canon, so I'm trying to get it written and posted before the third movie, as that will change canon. I'm not sure how it ends, but it covers at least six months in scope. Any suggestions for a better title would be welcome. It begins shortly after the attack on Liberty Island.

**BIG BOLD NOTE: I have not seen X3. I will not see it until this story is complete. Please, if you review, do not include spoilers for it, or criticize me for being uncanonical to X3. Thank you.**

---

Logan glanced out the window. Movement on the wall caught his gaze and held it. Someone was climbing down the wall.

The Professor saw his head turn. "What, Logan?"

"Someone's out there," he growled and was out the door. He came out of the building across a dark patio from the wall and was aware of the others behind him.

An intruder.

-

"Logan, wait, it might be a student!" Storm called. He didn't stop. The invader didn't smell like a student, and as it landed lightly on the ground, he saw its face in the moonlight: a woman, one he did not recognize. She stayed in the shadows, looking around warily, and did not make for the lit building. Instead she hugged the wall, slipping closer to the mansion.

And she moved with the same lithe grace that had characterized Mystique's movements.

Logan didn't stop to think that Mystique was dead, that he had killed her himself; a low rumble grew in his throat and exploded into a snarl as he extended his claws and charged her. She whirled, her eyes widening as she saw him, but incredibly, she didn't run; instead she planted her feet and stood her ground, dropping into what he recognized as a fighting crouch. But she didn't put her hands up as he closed, or duck, or anything. At the very last second surprise crossed her face, and she backed up just far enough that his claws raked across her shoulder instead of her chest.

He pulled back, taken by surprise that she'd not ducked; she took advantage of his hesitation and kicked him squarely in the knee. Logan winced, shrugging it off-- but the pain lingered far longer than it should have.

Before he could stop her she had leapt back on the wall and started climbing. "Stop!" Jean called, and he heard running footsteps behind him. Looking over his shoulder he saw Jean with her hands extended as she tried to immobilize the mutant with telekinesis-- but it didn't work. She kept climbing, dark red blood staining the white stone and green ivy.

He tensed his muscles, preparing for a spring at the wall, but someone grabbed his shoulder. "Don't!" It was Storm. "She wasn't going to hurt us. The professor said so."

"It's Mystique!" he snarled.

"No, it's not," Storm insisted. "The professor got a glimpse of her mind."

"Stop!" Professor Xavier's voice carried not authority but entreaty. "We mean you no harm."

The woman, at the very top of the wall, paused, half-turning to look down at them.

"You can tell if we're lying," the professor added.

The woman stood still, staring at them. "Can't you yank her down with wind or something?" Logan murmured.

Storm shook her head. "I already tried. Besides, I don't have enough control to avoid hurting her."

"Logan, come back here. You're frightening her," the professor said in a lower voice.

Reluctantly, not taking his eyes off of the woman perched in mid-flight at the top of the wall, he backed up until he stood behind the professor's wheelchair. Cyclops gave him an ironic glance. "Well done," he said.

"Shut it," Logan snarled.

"Both of you, stop," Xavier said sharply. He raised his voice again. "We're not going to hurt you."

It was like an odd tableau: the slender, black-clad woman on top of the wall, looking down at them; Storm and Jean, the latter's red hair glinting in the moonlight, stopped halfway to the wall, looking up; Cyclops and Xavier also watching; and Logan, banished behind them all, the woman's blood dripping from his claws before he sheathed them. The picture-like quality was broken as a single drop of blood ran from her left wrist, dangled briefly at the end of her longest finger, and then splashed silently to the stone wall.

Slowly, the woman nodded once and started to climb down again. It became apparent that she could only use one arm, and halfway down she slipped and fell, landing heavily on the ground despite Jean's outthrown hand.

She got to her feet before either of the women reached her, right hand pressed to her left shoulder. The blood, welling around her fingers, showed against her skin where before it had been hidden by the dark fabric of her shirt. There was a trail of bloody spots all the way up the wall.

Jean steadied her and led her not to the Professor, but towards the door leading into the mansion. The woman shook her head. "Wait," she said.

-

The stiff ivy dug into Narra's skin as she climbed down the cool stone wall. She could see her way by the moonlight. The grounds of the mansion were apparently safe, but she kept watching, wary of an ambush even at the end of her journey.

As she reached the bottom, a feral, animal noise made her look up. A man was running directly at her, long knives extending out of his hand. She dropped into a fighting crouch, throwing a bubble of blankness over herself-- but it did not impede his progress nor make the claws go away, and she ducked too late. The blades caught at her collarbone and ripped as she whirled away, sending hot lines of pain through her entire body.

There was no safety to be had here. She'd have to run again, but there was nowhere else she knew of to go. Adrenaline dulled the pain as Narra leapt for the wall, catching and climbing with one good arm. The knives had half-severed the left strap of her precious backpack, but she couldn't stop to adjust it now. She kept the bubble around her and felt it tested, but repelled the attack easily.

She reached the top, preparing to slide down the other side-- and then the voice of the man in the wheelchair made her pause. Somehow, he knew-- and he was right. She looked down at the five people in the courtyard, and reached out with her mind.

The man who had attacked her was simple: anger and suspicion. No deception there. The two women were wary, but she felt no hostility from them, whereas it radiated from the clawed man. The other two men were concerned, tense, and wary as well. But the man in the wheelchair had not lied. Only the clawed man was belligerent towards her, and as she watched, he retreated slowly backwards after the man in the wheelchair said something to him.

"We're not going to hurt you," the bald man called. His voice was authoritative and reassuring, carrying hints of power. Belatedly she realized that the attacks on her bubble during the fight had come from multiple sources, not just the redhaired woman, and he was one of them.

He was not lying. Her shoulder was bleeding steadily, and Narra knew it was a serious wound. If she left, she might not make it to anywhere else. If she was attacked again, she would not be able to fight off her attackers. And this had been her destination, her source of hope, for six weeks.

She knelt on the edge of the wall and awkwardly started to climb down again, but her arm would no longer support her. She fell and landed on the grass, scraping her face on the ivy as she went. Her body screamed in protest at the fresh pain, but she ignored it and got to her feet, holding her shoulder. Her hand was quickly covered in warm blood.

The two women flanked her, helping her to stand upright. A red haze was beginning to cloud her mind, but Narra pushed it away. "Let's get you to the infirmary," the redhaired woman said, and the other one smiled reassuringly. They started leading her to the building, but Narra shook her head and veered towards the man in the wheelchair. Up close, she recognized him from the pictures. This was indeed Professor Xavier.

"Wait," she said, laboriously unslinging her backpack. "My name is Narrala Symestreem. My father is Ben Hobson." She saw recognition of the name in two of the faces-- Professor Xavier's, and the redhaired woman's-- as she opened her bag.

"The researcher of mutant genetics?" asked Professor Xavier.

"But he disappeared," the redhaired woman said. "Along with his entire family."

Narra nodded to both questions. "Men have been after him and his work. Powerful men, who have connections, and could misuse his research. Six weeks ago I received a message on my cell phone as I was coming home from class. It was my father. All he said was that he and my mother and Stella had to leave, right then, and were getting out of town. I was to come directly to the bus depot."

She shook her head. "I knew they were after his work, which he kept on his home computer. I copied it onto a DVD and erased the originals. Then I destroyed the computer. I got out of the house about two steps before the men who came to ransack the place."

"I knew I had to bring it someplace where it would be safe. I also knew they'd be watching for our cars. So I walked here."

Digging in her bag, she found the slim disk she'd carried all the way from Pittsburgh, protecting it with her life. With her good hand she offered it to the professor. "This is the only extant copy of my father's research work."

When he took it, she felt like a weight had been lifted by her shoulders. Against all odds she'd made it, alone, and the work was safe. Narra allowed herself to slump with relief as the two women supported her and led her towards the building.

-

Narra was growing increasingly dizzy as they walked through the quiet hallways, but she forced herself to return coherent answers to the questions the two women asked her. The one with white hair was Ororo Munroe, and the redhaired one was Jean Grey.

Narra nodded. "My father reads a lot of your papers on mutants. He really liked the last one."

Finally they descended to a level different from the one above, with antiseptic white tile replacing soft carpet, and brushed steel replacing painted drywall. A door marked with a giant "X" slid open at their approach, and Narra found herself inside a state-of-the-art medical room.

She sat on one of the steel bunks and looked around, pain forgotten as she surveyed the equipment. Near the one wall was what looked a full-length body scanner, attached to a very powerful computer. Delicate surgical tools like nothing she'd ever seen before rested on silver trays in a clear cabinet near the wall. Having grown up in a research university, she was familiar with medical apparatus, and knew these were more advanced than anything doctors elsewhere were using.

Dr. Grey cut away the part of Narra's shirt that was sticking to the slashes and frowned. "These are going to need stitches." Narra, having anticipated that, merely nodded as the doctor filled a clear syringe with a clear liquid. "This will make you woozy. You'll probably want to lay down."

The anesthetic did make Narra woozy, and she closed her eyes as Dr. Grey cleaned and stitched the three long scores across her shoulder. The sight of blood didn't bother her, but seeing a needle going in and out of her own skin might. Finally the doctor put a large bandage over the area and secured it with a dressing. "That might need a sling in the morning. I'd like to see how the bandage holds up tonight." She turned Narra's hand over and fixed a small metal disc to her vein with medical tape, then frowned and reached for another syringe. "Are you allergic to propinquine?"

Narra shook her head. Dr. Grey loaded the syringe and injected it near the other needle mark. "You said you _walked_ from Pittsburgh?"

Narra nodded. "I hitchhiked at the beginning. Then I realized that would make it too easy for anyone looking for me to find me."

"Who was looking for you?"

Narra closed her eyes and concentrated, trying to focus her impressions from the few brief encounters. She'd had plenty of time to contemplate the subject, and always came to the same conclusions. "Not mutants," she said finally, looking up again. "If they were military, they were some sort of special branch. They worked alone or in small groups and appeared to operate under their own initiative."

Dr. Grey looked startled. "You encountered them?"

"Three times." A wave of dizziness swept through Narra, and she closed her eyes.

The doctor must have noticed, for she didn't ask any more questions about Narra's past. "Do you mind staying here tonight? The electrode on your wrist will monitor your vital signs and alert someone if they get out of stable range," she explained. "It'll be safer than putting you in a regular room."

Narra shook her head. "I've no objections."

"Do you want someone to bring you something to eat?"

The prospect of food should have been wonderful, but her shoulder hurt too much for her to be interested. And in the last week she'd simply stopped being hungry. "No, thank you."

She heard Dr. Grey putting instruments away. "If you need anything, press this button and someone will come," she said, and Narra opened her eyes to see what she was indicating, nodding to show that she'd heard. The doctor walked over to the door and paused, her hand on the trigger-pad. She looked over her shoulder. "Logan..." she started.

Narra frowned. "Who?"

"Logan. Wolverine," Dr. Grey explained. "The man who... attacked you."

"Oh."

"He didn't mean to hurt you." The words came out in a rush, a marked contrast to the doctor's previous calm demeanor, sparking Narra's curiosity. "Not you. We had a run-in with some mutant terrorists last week, and he thought you were one of them."

Narra frowned. "Would that be the attack on Liberty Island?"

Dr. Grey nodded, looking faintly surprised. "How'd you know?"

"Just an educated guess," Narra said.

This time it was the doctor who nodded. She paused for a moment, then waved her hand over the sensor pad and walked through the door. It slid shut behind her, and the lights dimmed.

Narra reached over the side of the treatment bench to make sure her backpack was still there, then closed her eyes and slept almost instantly.

-

"How is she?"

Jean jumped as the door slid closed behind her, and turned quickly to see Logan leaning against the wall, a cigar in his hand.

"She'll be fine," she assured him. "Malnourished and anemic, but the shoulder wound should heal quickly."

"Can I see her?"

"I think she's sleeping."

Logan scowled and stubbed the cigar out on his palm. "First Rogue," he muttered. "Now her." He shook his head, not sure if he wanted to dispel his dark mood or wallow in it.

Jean watched him for a moment, not sure what to say. She knew he was a dangerous man. They all knew it, and yet she also knew he would never deliberately hurt her-- would risk his life to protect her. As he thought he had been doing that night.

Finally she said, "It'll be fine." Trite words, yet she hoped they would be true.

He looked up, his eyes intense, and she realized just how close to him she was standing. Quickly she backed up. "Good night, Logan."

He didn't answer until she was halfway down the hall. His voice was hard to discern. "'Night."


	2. Explanation

Author's note: Some housekeeping. Obviously, I don't own any of this, though Narra is an original character. I recently found out that a comic book character named Leech can do much the same thing she can, though I came up with her before I read about him. Like I said, this will be based on movie canon, with bits of the comic book woven in. And I think I changed Beast' character slightly—was he a biochemist?

A/N 2: A few revisions as of 10 AM EST, 5/6.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy. This didn't come out exactly like I wanted, but oh well.

**BIG BOLD NOTE: I have not seen X3. I will not see it until this story is complete. Please, if you review, do not include spoilers for it, or criticize me for being uncanonical to X3. Thank you.**

-

Narra, exhausted after weeks on the road, slept soundly, so soundly that she didn't notice the door sliding open, the accompanying flare of light, or the soft footsteps. When she finally woke up some hours later, there was a pile of clothes by her feet.

She blinked up at the white ceiling, disoriented. There was no clock and no windows, so she had no way of knowing what time it was; it could have been the middle of the night.

In the wall to her right a door was open that she hadn't noticed the night before, leading to a bathroom. She looked from the open door to the clothes, and decided to make herself presentable, then find something to eat. Her appetite had returned while she slept, and now she was faint with hunger.

The bathroom had obviously been made to accommodate injured mutants of all forms, and contained a huge sunken bath as well as a showerhead. She eyed the bath with interest, but eventually decided that the warm water would put her to sleep again and she'd probably drown.

The contusions, wounds and bruises on her thin skin were clearly visible as she scrubbed away three days' worth of dirt, a history of her trip ranging from nearly healed to fresh. Most noticeable out of all of them were the three angry red gashes on her left shoulder. They'd probably scar, she thought dispassionately.

The pile of clothing proved to be a shirt and pants, simple and dark. They were a bit loose on her, but the feeling of wearing clean, _dry_ clothing was so luxurious that she didn't care. Not wanting to put on her filthy shoes, she went barefoot, and since she couldn't braid her hair without wrenching her shoulder, she left it loose, combing it clumsily into some semblance of order with her fingers. Finally she stuffed the dirty clothes into her backpack, swung that over her good arm, and approached the door, which slid open accommodatingly.

Retracing her steps, she came back to the ground floor and blinked against the sunlight streaming in the windows. It was apparently mid-morning, but the hallways were deserted. Narra cautiously stretched out her senses and found the greatest concentration of emotion stretching away from her. She stopped walking and closed her eyes, exploring the sensations, tasting them in her head. There was contentment, and boredom, and happiness, and anger; love, hate, jealousy, sadness, surprise... all the emotions one would expect of normal people. But there was very little fear. This was a safe place, then.

After a few minutes she opened her eyes again and looked around. Ahead, on the right, was a small kitchen. It, too, was deserted, but by the haphazardly piled assortment of dishes in the sink, several someones had eaten here earlier, and by the odd remnants of even odder foods clinging to the plates and bowls, most of them had been children.

Looking through the cabinets and cupboards, reveling in having the luxury of choice, she finally put a small pot of water on to boil and made herself a bowl of oatmeal, heavily embellishing it with honey, cinnamon, and raisins. Dish in hand, she wandered out into the hallway, only to return to the kitchen for her backpack.

Near the kitchen was a library, filled wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling with thousands of books. She wandered over to the genetics section and looked at the selection. Most of them Narra had read, but one, by Dr. Hank McCoy, was unfamiliar to her. She pulled it off of the shelf and began to read, oatmeal quickly forgotten. Only when her foot started to cramp did she realize that her breakfast was cooling, and she was still ravenous. She replaced the book and left.

Also nearby was a large open area containing several couches, some chairs, and a television, obviously a rec room of some sort. Through another door she saw a game room, with a pool table and a foozball table as well as a ping-pong net. Farther through that area was a pair of massive doors, obviously the front entrance, but she turned down another hallway and continued her explorations. As she walked farther, past more living areas, the rooms took on more of an institutional atmosphere, and Narra realized she was in the school.

Having scraped the bowl clean, she retraced her steps to the kitchen, washing the dishes she'd used as well as the others in the sink. Then, the plan of the house firmly in her mind, she went looking for someone.

It wasn't very long before she was found by Dr. Grey as the red-haired woman stepped out of what appeared to be a science classroom. Faint surprise radiated off of her-- startlement, really-- but she smiled. "How do you feel?"

Narra experimentally rotated her left arm in a restricted arc. "Much better, thank you."

"Did you get something to eat?"

Narra nodded.

"I was on my way to come find you, actually," she said. "The professor would like to talk to you."

So Narra followed Dr. Grey down the hall, nearly to the other end of the house, into what proved to be a study. The professor was seated behind a desk, talking with the other occupant of the room, the third man from the night before. He looked up when they entered and smiled a welcome.

"Ah, our newest resident," he said. "I trust you're feeling better?"

"Yes, thank you," she said, instinctively closing herself off as she glanced quickly around the study. There was no need to be wary of attack here, but it was deeply ingrained instinct after six weeks on the run. And she was curious.

"I don't believe you've met Scott Summers," he continued, indicating the second man, who nodded. Though they were inside, he wore sunglasses with dark red lenses.

"Storm coming?" Dr. Grey asked.

Professor Xavier cocked his head as if listening. "She's on her way," he said, and sure enough, the door opened a moment later.

Narra was surprised to see Ms. Munroe enter. Her bewilderment must have shown on her face, for Dr. Grey explained, "Storm is... it's like a mutant name. Scott is Cyclops, and Logan is Wolverine. Most of us have them."

"And you are?" Narra asked.

She shook her head. "Just Jean."

"I thought Logan was going to be here," Ms. Munroe-- Storm-- said.

Narra felt a brief flare of hostility as Scott said, "He went off somewhere early this morning."

There was a pause, then the professor said, "I believe we've put together most of your story, but there are still some questions."

Narra nodded.

"Do you have any idea who the men who chased you were?" said Scott. "Who sent them?"

She shook her head. "The first people to express an interest in obtaining my father's work were representatives of a biopharmaceutical firm. I'm almost positive the men who pursued me were related in it to some way, yet when they first approached him my father researched them thoroughly and found them to be a shadow front for another entity."

"Who?"

"We never found out."

"What kind of research, exactly, does your father do?" said Storm.

"He's a genetics professor at the University of Pittsburgh," she said at last, expanding on what she'd said the night before. "For the past twenty years he's been studying the transmission of mutant traits through family lines. Before that he did other research into genetic determination of mutant emergence." Storm and Scott looked confused, so she explained, "He was trying to find out what made mutant traits emerge when they did, whether under stress or at puberty."

"Yes, I remember being quite impressed with his early work," the professor murmured.

"You knew him?" Scott said.

Professor Xavier shook his head. "Never personally. Only by reputation. He's quite famous in his field."

Narra smiled, then went on. "For the past three years or so, someone has been trying to get access to his research. First the shadow corporation contacted him with a lucrative offer if he would turn his data over to them, but he turned them down. They tried to... persuade him, but he refused. They vanished, and we thought that was the end of it until his lab at school was vandalized, and then his office."

"You're sure whoever it was was looking for his data?" Scott asked.

She nodded. "Yes, because the computers were always left intact, but everything else would be strewn everywhere."

"Did they ever find anything?"

"No. Everything was on one computer at home." Narra paused, then continued. "People started following us. My father started to get threats. Then..." she paused again, trying once again to sort through hee jumbled memories of that taut day. "I don't know for sure, but I think someone attacked Stella, my sister," she said finally. "I was on my way home from class when my father called and told me to drop whatever I was doing and leave right away." What had scared her, more than anything else, was that her father had sounded frightened. "By the time he hung up I was at home anyway. I knew they would be coming for his data, so I copied his and my hard drives onto a DVD and destroyed the computers. As I walked out the backyard, men in black arrived in the front. They ransacked the house."

"And then you came here."

Narra nodded.

"What do you intend to do now?" said Storm.

"You're welcome to stay as long as you like," added the professor.

"Thank you," Narra said. "I would like to stay here and look for my family. And resume my research."

"Research?" said Storm. "You mean your father's?"

Narra shook her head. "I was my father's lab assistant, but I also did work of my own."

Jean looked interested. "What kind of work?"

"Broadly, building a database of mutant DNA in order to determine the differences between the mutant genome and the non-mutant one. Specifically, I'm hoping to discover which genes control which types of mutations."

"Could you also use it to determine more about a mutation based on the person's genetic code?" asked Scott.

"It would depend on the mutation, but it's very probable."

Scott looked at the professor. "She could use the DNA of the children, assuming they are amenable."

Professor Xavier nodded. "Yes, that was my initial idea as well." Narra caught an emotional surge and realized that another person was approaching; a moment later, there was a soft knock on the door. "Ah, my literature students." The others in the room stood, so Narra followed suit. "One more question before you go," he said. "Your mutation seems to be of an... unusual nature."

Narra hesitated. "I have what my father called a reactive mutaton," she said. "I can suppress the powers of other mutants. I also inherited the empathy trait from my mother."

"You sense other peoples' emotions?" said Storm.

She nodded. "I can also affect them." She felt no concern, or disquiet, from any of the others, and felt her own worries ease; she had not been sure how they would react to her primary mutation.

"I'll ask one of the older girls to help you get settled," Jean said as they walked down the hallway. "Move you into a room, find you some more clothes."

"Thank you," Narra said, slipping her backpack over her right shoulder. Storm, on her other side, gave it a curious look, but didn't say anything.

-

Logan woke sweat-soaked to a dark, hot room that, to his enhanced senses, reeked of anger and fear.

Shoving the damp blankets to the floor, he padded silently to the door and walked out. The hallways were dark and quiet, the students either in bed or sneaking around silently enough that they appeared to be in bed. He didn't know what time it was; probably around two. He'd gotten back around midnight from a long jaunt on Cyclops's bike.

Logan paced silently down the stairs, welcoming the cool air. It slowed his rapidly pounding heart. He couldn't remember the dream, but knew it had been like all the others: rage. Blood. Screams.

-

Narra moved on autopilot as she put two saucepans on to heat, one of milk and one of water. She'd woken in the middle of the night, again ravenously hungry. It probably would be a couple of weeks before she fully recovered from her cross-country exodus.

She measured from the box, blinking back sudden tears as she recalled all the times she'd done this at home after a late night at the lab. Her mother had taken to teasing her about the 'Phantom Glutton', who mysteriously made dirty dishes appear between supper and breakfast. Where was her mother now?

"I'm sorry about your shoulder."

Wrapped up in her own thoughts, Narra missed the approach of another person, and squelched the startled impulse to assume a fighting position. Instead she looked up quickly. Logan-- Wolverine-- was leaning against the doorframe, watching her. He looked like he'd just gotten out of bed, and beneath a calm surface she sensed a dark tangle of emotions.

"It's fine," she said, and felt strong surprise rolling off of him. "Want some noodles?"

-

Logan blinked. "Sure." Whatever he'd expected-- fear, anger-- he hadn't gotten.

As the girl-- Narra, he remembered-- added dried cereal to one of the pots and dark powder to the other, he watched her. She was tall, and slender to the point of being gaunt, with little figure. Dark hair hung loose to the middle of her back. He couldn't help but notice that she used her left arm sparingly. Her facial structure seemed to reflect exoticism that was at odds with her pale skin.

She didn't look at him again, but concentrated on her task, retrieving a variety of items from what Logan realized as the spice cabinet and a perforated metal bowl from under the counter. When the contents of the two pots were apparently done, she took two bowls from a cabinet with the hesitancy of someone who is in unfamiliar territory. Steam rose in a great cloud as she strained the noodles.

Logan hadn't moved out of the doorway. Narra put the two bowls on the table and glanced up at him; it was a question, or an invitation. Startled out of his reverie, he sat down a bit awkwardly, unsure as to what to say.

She divided the contents of the other pan into two mugs and slid one across the table to him. He looked down in surprise: it was hot chocolate.

"Thanks," he said.

"You're welcome." She slid into the seat across from him with the grace that had caused him to mistake her identity, though now that he was closer, Logan realized that she moved less sinuously and with more economy of motion than Mystique.

Mystique. He still felt like he had to explain. "I thought you were attacking the school," he said abruptly, his voice coming out lower and more grating than he'd intended.

Narra waved away his explanation. "I probably would have done the same thing."

One eyebrow curled up. "You don't have claws."

"No, but I am a second-degree black belt."

Logan blinked again, then nodded. "Fair enough."

Narra performed what looked like a complicated maneuver with the row of spice bottles, her hands always replacing an old bottle and picking up a new one as she progressed down the line, shaking the contents into either her dish or her mug.

"What was that?" he said.

She looked up. "It's just how I season my food."

It looked pretty weird to him, but he shrugged. Whatever floated her boat.

"What are you?" he said suddenly a few minutes later.

Narra looked up again. "I beg your pardon?"

He grimaced. "You look like you should be from the islands or something."

Her face cleared. "My mother is half-Italian. My father is half-Indian."

He nodded. "And you don't know where they are?"

"No."

"Tough break."

Narra shrugged, and he sensed her unwillingness to continue the discussion. "So, you stayin' on here?"

"Yes," she said. "To continue my research."

He raised an eyebrow. "Research?"

Large dark eyes surveyed him steadily over the rim of the mug. "I'm a geneticist."

"Oh."

Narra got up to put the spices away. "Why didn't you duck?" Logan said suddenly, a few minutes later.

"I block other peoples' mutations," she said. "I thought the claws were yours."

"No," he said, reluctant in his own turn to discuss it. Then: "You stop other people from usin' their powers?"

She nodded.

"That could've come in handy," he muttered.

"The Liberty Island attack?"

He frowned. "How'd you know about that?"

"Something Jean said."

Had Logan been a true wolverine, his ears would have perked up at the name; as it was, he merely half-nodded, half-shrugged, trying to feign indifference.

The empty dishes went in the sink. As Narra turned to go, he noticed that she wasn't wearing any shoes. "Good night," she said, though technically it was probably morning.

"'Night." He watched her go with a slight frown, still not sure what to make of her. Then he shrugged. As mutants went, she was pretty normal.

Logan wandered the halls for a few minutes, but his restlesssness was gone, and when he went back to bed, so were his nightmares.


	3. Acclimation

**BIG BOLD NOTE: I have not seen X3. I will not see it until this story is complete. Please, if you review, do not include spoilers for it, or criticize me for being uncanonical to X3. Thank you.**

Narra woke at first light. Casting about physically and mentally for the source of the disturbance, she felt the tangle of fear and panic that usually meant one of the children was having a nightmare. It had to be a strong one, if it not only registered with her but also woke her up; Narra had long since learned, out of self-preservation, how to dampen the receiving aspect of her empathy.

She projected calm and assurance until she felt the fear subside; then she relaxed and stretched out her mind, letting her empathic sense expand over the mansion. It was an exercise she mentally likened to tasting and identifying the different elements of a new, exotic stew. Most of the emotions she "tasted" were calm, the occupants sleeping or drowsily waking; here and there she sensed a sharp spike of alertness. She slipped deeper into her empathy, ignoring her other five senses for the moment. Under the surface of serenity was a richer blend, reflecting the dreams of those whose emotions she sensed. Joy, despair, confusion, discontent-- the sharp flare of exhilaration stood out-- anger, hope. She let her mind sift through them; it was like running her hands over a variety of fabrics of varied texture, some pleasing like smooth velvet on rough hands, some stimulating like coarse canvas, some ambiguous like silk, some just plain unpleasant, like itchy wool.

Narra pulled her senses back into her own head and lay in bed for a few minutes, luxuriating in the sensations of soft, clean-smelling sheets and a warm blanket, admiring the muted colors the sunrise reflected onto her ceiling. Then she sat up, swung her legs out of the bed, and stretched.

It was too early in the morning to practice kata; she usually did that after the students in the room next to her had gone to breakfast so as not to alarm them with thumps or _kiyai_s. Instead she lifted the monitor of the laptop computer sitting on her desk, waking it from sleep.

Every day she spent at least an hour searching the Internet for any signs of her family. She hacked into police databases and hospital records, though she wasn't sure if she wanted news of that sort. She sliced into low-level government networks, trying to determine if the men who had ransacked the house and attacked her were indeed military. She monitored the e-mail accounts of her parents and her sister-- they were dormant, of course; her family would assume they were being watched. And they were. By being more careful than the others, Narra was able to access the records of everyone else who had hacked the e-mail accounts recently, and she began the long, laborious process of tracing their IP addresses, gleaning whatever information she could along the way.

She also frequented message boards and news lists of all kinds, all pertaining to genetics. His work was her father's second great love, and even on the run, he would still be involved with it. Narra searched for posts pertaining to his research, or even written in his style; she knew she would recognize it. She found nothing, which worried her incessantly. Even if he hadn't been keeping up with his research, her father would have known that a science forum would be the best way to get a message to her.

Today was no different. The only lead she got was that one of the IP addresses that had sliced into her father's e-mail account seemed on the brink of resolving itself, to what looked like a location in Canada. She frowned. _Canada_?

Narra closed the laptop, stood, and stretched. Reaching out with her emotional sense, she found the room next to her blank, which was a pretty good indication that it was empty. So she made sure she had a large enough clear space-- she'd neglected to do so her first morning, and paid the price of a stinging foot for the rest of the day-- and began her katas.

She skipped some of them because of the stitches still in her shoulder, though Jean had said those could come out in a couple of days. Even abbreviated, Narra enjoyed the exercise, both in its own right and for its familiarity. It was a link to her past, and she had abruptly learned to cherish those.

Narra showered, dressed and braided her hair quickly, then tucked the laptop under her arm, slung the backpack over her shoulder, and went downstairs for some breakfast. The small kitchen was nearly full, so she grabbed a few slices of bread and ducked out, earning a few curious glances. She hadn't met all of the students yet; there had to be at least fifty of them.

Her lab was on the ground floor, in an out of the way hallway, the door flanked on one side by a ceramic half-sized Pallas Athena statue and on the other by a table with a vase of flowers. The interior of the small room was clean and austere in contrast to the warm wooden paneling and decorative ornaments of the rest of the mansion. A black lab counter ran around three sides of the room, interrupted on each side by a refrigerator. In the center was a wooden table with electrical outlets and network ports inlaid in the surface, and several chairs pushed underneath. Various pieces of equipment sat on the lab counter, exotic and novel to the untrained eye, but quite familiar to her. On the wall to her right was a cabinet, from which she took a neatly folded lab coat and a pair of safety glasses; beneath the cabinet was a collection of clear glass canisters and plastic bottles, holding cotton swabs, bandages, isopropyl alcohol, and other substances.

Narra felt a faint smile tug at her lips as she plugged the laptop in in the center of the room and opened the refrigerator. Always before she'd shared space in someone else's lab, usually her father's or another professor's; now, she couldn't shake the faint pride of possession. It still wasn't technically hers. of course, just an unused room in the mansion, furnished with equipment that, despite having been in storage, was more advanced than anything she had ever seen before. But it was a lab; it was where she belonged.

She worked for perhaps a quarter of an hour, connecting the computer to download information while simultaneously setting up the gel electrophoresis machine, before a timid tap on the door interrupted her. "Come in," she called, putting down the solution she was mixing and looking up.

The door swung open slowly, propelled by a hand that proved to be attached to a young teenage girl with flaming red hair. "Um... Miss Symestreem? Storm said you wanted to see me?" She radiated confusion and nervousness.

Narra smiled, trying to put the newcomer at ease. "Please call me Narra. You can sit down if you like." She gestured to one of the chairs, and the girl hesitantly took it. "Did Storm explain why?"

The girl shook her head. "You're new here, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am," Narra said. "I've only been here a week."

"Are you a mutant?"

"Yes," Narra said. "I'm an empath."

"What's that?"

"I'm sensitive to emotion."

The girl frowned, then nodded. "I get it." She shifted in her seat. "So..."

"I'm also a geneticist," Narra explained. "With the professor's permission I'm creating a database of DNA from the students here, in the hopes of analyzing it to determine what genes control what mutations."

"Oh. So you want my DNA?" She looked around at the equipment. "Do you need to draw blood or something?"

Narra shook her head. "Only a skin sample, and then I'll have a few questions for you."

The redhead shrugged. "Sure, I guess."

Narra donned gloves and removed the sampling device from the drawer, getting a fresh tip from the package and attaching it. The gadget looked like a syringe with a wide mouth. Jean had said the device had originally been developed by the military as a quick way of identifying unrecognizable soldiers on the battlefield; Narra hadn't asked how the X-mansion had acquired possession of it. She swabbed the girl's arm with alcohol and placed the open end of the sampling tool against her skin, sliding the operational lever.

"That's it?" her volunteer asked as Narra took the thing away. It left only a faint red circle on her skin.

"That's it," Narra confirmed, removing the glass chamber that now held the invisible skin sample and placing it on the counter. She affixed a fresh sticky label to it. "What name do you prefer?"

"I'm Tracy Cassidy, but everyone calls me Siryn."

Even as Narra's hand automatically filled out the label, she blinked. _Of course, I should have recognized her. She looks just like her father_. Her mind flickered back to the night thirteen years ago when she'd hidden in the shadows of her father's study and eavesdropped on his conversation with a man named Banshee. _I wonder if she knows our fathers know each other?_ Narra thought, but did not ask.

"What can you tell me about your powers?" she asked, moving to the computer and opening the database entry program.

"I scream," Siryn said. "I shatter things with my voice. And I can incapacitate people."

"What sort of things?" Narra's finger moved quickly over the keyboard.

She shrugged. "Glass. Steel. It depends on how loud I scream."

"When does your power tend to manifest itself?" Seeing and sensing puzzlement, Narra rephrased the question. "Can you control it? Does it happen when you're angry?"

"I can control it," Tracy said, then admitted, "When I'm mad it sometimes gets out of control."

Narra asked more questions and typed the answers. Finally, she smiled and said, "Thank you."

"That's it?"

Narra nodded.

Siryn stood to go. "Are you, like, staying here?"

"I hope to," Narra said. The Irish girl gave her a strange look as she left.

Narra spent the rest of the day manipulating and analyzing Siryn's DNA, trying to get enough information to compare to the other genetic sequences already on the computer. They'd been on the DVD she'd brought from Pittsburgh, the results of her father's earlier studies on the mutant community of Pittsburgh.

The shadows slanting through the window and the growling of her stomach finally reminded her that it was getting late, so she replaced the lab coat and safety glasses in the cabinet, washed her hands at the small sink, and disconnected the laptop, tucking it under her arm once again. The hallways were much fuller at this time of day than they had been in the morning, and some of the young mutants gave her curious looks, but most of them were traveling in groups and too absorbed in their conversations to notice her. She took that as a good sign; it meant they were happy.

After stopping in the library to pick up the book she had started earlier, Narra visited the kitchen. By comparison it was relatively empty, only occupied by two giggling girls who left soon after she arrived, laden with soda and a bag of pretzels. A refrigerator rummage produced the materials for a cheese sandwich, and the basket on the island furnished an apple. Narra sat down to eat and read and was quickly absorbed into Dr. McCoy's theories.

"So you're the new one?"

Narra looked up to see a teenage boy with loose brown hair looking down at her. He was playing with a cigarette lighter. "Yes, I am."

"They say Wolverine tore you up pretty good," said the boy.

"It wasn't that bad." Narra put the book down to look at him and his two companions. One was another boy, blonde with wide blue eyes; the girl had flawless skin and dark hair with a startling cream streak at the front.

"I'm John," the first boy said. He looked faintly bored. "Everyone calls me Pyro." He flicked the lighter, and a ball of flame suddenly hovered in his hand. He cupped it, showing it off, and the boredom was replaced with intense fascination.

"I'm Narra," she said.

"Bobby Drake," said the other boy, extending his hand where John had not. She shook it, and instantly felt chilled. "Also known as Iceman."

"I'm Marie." The girl had a pronounced Southern drawl and a warm smile; Narra also noticed that she wore gloves, and hesitated before offering her hand. "Everyone calls me Rogue."

Narra stretched out with her empathy to graze the top level of their emotional sense, but the strong barrage startled her. _Right_, she thought wryly. _I forgot. They're teenagers, incapable of emotional subtlety_. She reached out more cautiously the second time. Her predominant impressions were of John's arrogant good humor, and more strongly, the mix of attraction and longing between the other two that could only mean mutual and unrequited affection. "Nice to meet all of you," she said.

"Where you from?" Bobby asked.

"Pittsburgh. You?"

"Boston."

"Mississippi," Rogue said, and Narra felt a surge of uneasiness before she closed off her mind.

John shrugged. "Born in Australia. Parents moved to New York when I was three." He flicked his lighter again.

"What's your power?" Bobby asked.

Narra felt a little like a kid with her hand caught in the cookie jar, because she'd been using it to analyze them, but she kept her face neutral and her voice even as she said, "Empathy."

John looked interested. "You play with peoples' emotions?"

"No," Narra said. "I sense them, and occasionally manipulate them if need be."

He looked unimpressed by the distinction. "How come you're not in classes?"

"I've graduated," she replied. "I was a senior at the University of Pittsburgh before I left."

"Why'd you leave?" Rogue asked. She looked interested, and intuition indicated that it was more than a casual question.

"People were after my family."

Having analyzed her and duly attempted to impress her, apparently John no longer found her of interest. "You guys want to go play foozball?"

"Want to come?" Rogue asked Narra.

She shook her head. "Thanks, but I think I'll stay here for a while. Have fun, though."

The three exited, and Narra couldn't miss the look Bobby gave Rogue when she wasn't looking, and the look Rogue gave Bobby when _he_ wasn't looking. She fought the urge to smile.

The book recaptured her attention until it grew dark outside, at which time the interior lights automatically flickering on recalled her to the present again. She realized how much time had passed, and wondered why no other students had come in for something to eat. Perhaps there was another kitchen? She reached out with her empathy and felt a stronger concentration of emotions coming from her left than her right; following the sensations took her eventually to a large dining room, with a large number of round tables scattered about and a long line of chafing dishes on a rectangular table near the wall.

Her deprivation-induced hunger was beginning to fade, and she took only a small helping of rice and vegetables and a roll. Storm looked up, smiled welcomingly, and waved her over to join Jean and Scott; the Professor was not in the room.

When Narra sat down a little hesitantly, the two women were talking about classroom instruction. "You teach?" she asked during a lull in the conversation.

"Yes," Jean said. "All three of us. Scott teaches automotive repair, Storm teaches history, and I teach science. The Professor teaches literature and math," she added.

"Automotive repair?"

"We have a fleet of vehicles in the garage downstairs," Scott explained. "They help me maintain them."

Narra nodded. Storm asked, "Did Tracy come see you? I asked her to."

"Yes, thank you," Narra said. "I took a skin sample from her and started comparing it to the others in the database."

Jean frowned. "You've done others already?"

"No, their genetic information was on the disc," Narra explained. "My father had analyzed many mutants in the Pittsburgh area when he was investigating gene regulation of mutation manifestation, so the records were still with his other work."

"What did he find?" Jean asked. "I don't recall reading any papers on the subject."

"No, he never published," Narra said. "The work was never finished, but preliminary research indicated..."

-

Logan leaned against the doorframe and watched the two women talking. It was an interesting picture. Jean's bright hair contrasted with Narra's dark, but in the way they used their hands and the concentration on their faces he saw the same intensity, a devotion to whatever they were talking about. Probably science.

He realized he was staring at Jean, captivated by her face, and that Scott was glaring at him. He grinned at the X-Man and looked around. Rogue was eating at a crowded table with a bunch of other teenagers, and she looked happy. She looked up and saw him, gave him a smile and a wave, and went back to her conversation.

He straightened up and turned around, retreating from the bright room into the dimly lit hallways. He'd gone to say goodbye to Jean, but just as suddenly had changed his mind. It wasn't as if he was leaving forever; Logan had already decided to return after his search to see if the Professor could read anything more from his mind. Besides, if he didn't say goodbye, she might watch closer for his return.

He reached his own room and collapsed on the bed after taking off his shoes and shirt. Everything he owned occupied a small duffel bag by the door. He would leave early in the morning.

---

Author's note: I took a little creative license with the layout of the mansion, thinking there was no way that the kitchen shown in X2 could feed all the students.

Oh, and speaking of X2, we're coming up on it relatively quickly. One more chapter, I think, if that. Since this is movie canon, Narra obviously won't be involved with the events of Alkali Lake—directly, at least.


	4. Attack

A/N: Really long chapter. Sorry. There just wasn't a stopping point—you'll understand when you read.

**BIG BOLD NOTE: I have not seen X3. I will not see it until this story is complete. Please, if you review, do not include spoilers for it, or criticize me for being uncanonical to X3. Thank you.**

- - -

Narra woke suddenly in the middle of the night. Wary instinct developed on the road prompted her to survey her room, both physically and empathically. Her eyes found no intruders in the shadows, and her senses found no one in the bathroom, where she could not see. Still, she swung out of bed, padded silently to the doorway, and flicked the switch. The sudden light seared her eyes and she squinted, looking inside, around, and through the clear shower curtain. No one.

These awakenings were inconvenient, but her caution had saved her many times on the road. Perhaps it was just someone having a nightmare that had disturbed her; she sent a reassuring wave of calm outwards to the sleeping students. She still had not mastered shutting off her emotions as she slept.

The clock read 2:48 in the morning, but she was wide awake now. She put on the clothes of the day before and slipped through the outer door into the hallway. Performing kata would calm her, but would wake the occupants of the room next to hers. Somewhere on the first floor was a small gym that would be better suited for her purposes.

Narra found it, only to discover that it was not unoccupied. A young man, perhaps her age or a little younger, was bench-pressing a substantial amount of weight. She stood near the door and watched for a while, faintly fascinated by the way his muscles rippled under his skin. He had to be the strongest person she'd ever seen.

He was also the tallest, she realized a few minutes later as he saw her, put the bar back on its slot with a faint _clink_, and sat up. Standing, he'd be well over six feet, probably closer to seven. "Are you Narra?" he asked, his voice faintly but unmistakably accented.

"Yes," she said, surprised. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

"You didn't," he said. "I only come down here this late because if the boys see me lifting this much weight, they try to imitate me. I'm Peter," he added.

"Nice to meet you," she said.

He gestured. "Did you want to use the bench-press?"

Narra shook her head. "No, I came down here to practice kata."

Peter nodded, but Narra sensed confusion, so she added, "Ritualized karate exercises." She moved onto the mats on the other side of the room, deliberately facing away from him, not out of rudeness, but out of the knowledge that they would both perform better unobserved. She closed her eyes and breathed in, held it for a count of ten, and began...

-

It was Colossus's turn to watch her as she had watched him. Her movements were clean and precise, more graceful than he ever had been or ever would be. She was almost completely silent; if she was even breathing hard, the sound didn't register over the quiet thumps of her bare feet on the padded mats. She moved faster and faster until she was little more than a dark blur, her feet, hands and face the only light spots.

Peter looked politely away. Gossip spread quickly throughout the school, and everyone had heard of the enigmatic newcomer and her trek from Pennsylvania. Austin, who had a window overlooking the back courtyard and had consequently seen her arrival, swore that she had shrugged off a blow that would have gutted a wild boar, standing steady while gallons of blood poured out of her. He was pretty sure he didn't believe that-- no one could lose that much blood, unless it was the equally mysterious Logan-- but watching her, it was apparent that she knew how to take care of herself. He thought he would have liked to sketch her.

He returned to his weight-lifting; Narra continued her katas. Eventually he finished his workout and started returning the weights to their proper slots on the board, trying to be quiet so they wouldn't _clink_.

-

Narra finished abruptly and stood still, catching her breath. Sometime before she'd left the ordered kata, putting together her own sequences of moves in an order that was not quite random. It wasn't sparring, and it wasn't ordered repetition, but something in between; it was almost like dancing.

Peter was putting the weights away. "Can you teach me some of that?" he asked.

"If you like," she said, wiping the sweat off of her forehead, then stifled a yawn. "But not tonight, I think."

"What's your mutation?"

She felt worse about being evasive with him than she had with John. "I'm an empath," she hedged. Technically it was true, it just didn't answer his question. "And you?"

"I metallize." Peter hesitated, then concentrated, and all of his visible skin quickly turned to a shiny silver.

Narra found herself wondering what sort of genetic changes would prdouce such a mutation. _It can't be a point mutation_, she thought. _Probably an alteration on the P locus, possibly coupled with a deletion near the X locus..._ She shook herself mentally; she'd have time to analyze and hypothesize if and when he participated in the database. Stifling another yawn, she realized she'd probably be able to sleep now. "It was a pleasure meeting you," she said. "Good night."

"Good night," Peter said.

-

Narra woke suddenly in the middle of the night. She wasn't sure what had woke her until she cast about with her mind and sensed strong unhappiness. Someone was miserable enough that the feeling was strong enough to pass through her barriers and wake her.

She slipped into a robe and padded quietly down the hall, following the sense until her eyes made her empathy superfluous. Someone-- a girl-- was sitting in the window seat at the far end of the hall, her head leaning against the glass, and from the way her shoulders shook Narra thought she was crying. As she got closer, she saw that it was Marie, or Rogue, as she seemed to prefer.

Narra stood for a few minutes, projecting calm and soothing, but sensed that whatever was troubling the girl would not be fixed with such subtle suggestions. So she sat down lightly on the other end of the window seat and waited for Rogue to notice her.

When she did, she was startled. "I'm sorry," the girl sniffled, her Southern drawl audible even through her tears. "I didn't mean to wake anyone."

Narra couldn't exactly say she hadn't, so she shrugged and said, "I'm used to it." She handed Rogue a tissue. "You want to talk about it?"

Rogue sniffed again and wiped her eyes. "It's-- it's-- Bobby," she choked out.

Narra thought back to her first impressions of the young mutant in question for insight: kind, polite, quiet. "Did you two have a fight?"

Rogue shook her head. "He said-- he said he really likes me." She dissolved into another bout of tears. "And I really like him." The last was nearly incomprehensible.

Narra sent more soothing suggestions. She thought she knew where this was going, but she said, "And you don't think it would work out?"

_Empathy doesn't always equate with tact_, she thought wryly as the girl next to her only cried harder. _That was not the right thing to say_. So she fished another tissue out from the stash in her sleeve, offered it to Rogue, and waited for her to calm down. Narra could have made her calm down; it was well within the range of her empathic abilities. But it would have been an unnatural respite and a manipulative thing to do; besides, she hoped that talking about it might make Rogue feel better. She had always wondered about the truth of that old adage; she rarely talked about the things that were troubling her, especially not to someone she knew as casually as she did Rogue. The more burdensome the difficulty, the closer someone had to be in order for Narra to confide in them. But she didn't look down on others for sharing their problems, and had often served as a sympathetic listener.

"I can't _be_ with him," Rogue said when she had stopped sobbing. "I-- if I touch him, I'll kill him!" While Narra was figuring out what to say, she continued more quietly, "I hear them sometimes, you know. All the people I've touched? Logan... Magneto... and David. The first boy I ever kissed? I put him in a coma for _three weeks_."

"So did I." The words were a surprise to Narra; she hadn't been planning on sharing that particular incident in her past.

Rogue's eyes grew large. "What happened?"

"Not the first boy I ever kissed," Narra amended reluctantly. "But the first I ever had a steady relationship with." She leaned back against the window, ordering her thoughts and memories of the episode in question. "None of my family had conspicuous mutations," she said slowly, "so those who wanted to believe that my father's interest in mutant genetics was purely academic could do so. Some people knew he had a mutant wife, or a mutant daughter, but not many."

Rogue was listening intently. "One day there was an attack on the Pittsburgh subway system," Narra continued. "It was blamed on mutant terrorists. My boyfriend's mother was killed, and he was orphaned. He developed a strong hatred for mutants and vowed to avenge his mother. I thought it would pass, but it didn't."

"I had to tell him," she said. "I hoped he would see that he was wrong about mutants. But instead he went berserk. He attacked me."

"We fought on the street corner. He must have known he couldn't overpower me, but-- he tried anyway." She paused; when she started speaking again, her voice was quieter. "I had no choice. I had to defend myself. In the process he hit his head and didn't wake up for twenty-five days."

"Whoa," Rogue breathed. "What happened?"

"Shortly after I left for India for several months to see my grandmother. When I came back he'd moved to a different part of the city. I didn't try to get in contact with him."

Rogue stared out the window-- and a wave of guilt blindsided Narra. She immediately clamped down on it so as not to channel it to Rogue or any of the sleeping students, but the thought process that had caused it remained. Rogue's mutation was preventing her from being close to Bobby-- and she, Narra, could block others' mutations.

_I can't do that_, she thought reluctantly. _They can't depend on me for their relationship. What would happen when I left? This is between the two of them._ It was a rational chain of thought, but she still felt guilty.

"I just want to be with him," Rogue said more quietly. "I've-- I've been alone for so long." This last was nearly inaudible.

Narra felt a swell of pity, sympathy, for Rogue. She knew what it was like to be alone, but in the other girl's case it was far worse. "My parents met through letters," she said suddenly.

Rogue looked at her, her red-rimmed eyes confused. "What?"

"They corresponded for three years before they ever met," she explained. "And by then they were engaged, sight unseen. Though it didn't hurt that when they did meet, my father thought my mother was the most beautiful woman he'd ever laid eyes on, and my mother thought my father was the kindest."

"That's so sweet," Rogue breathed. "They got engaged without ever meeting?"

Narra shrugged. "They loved each other." She said it as if were explanation enough-- and it was. A quick smile flitted across her face. "My mother says she never had such a surprise as when she opened the envelope and a ring fell out."

"But it's not the same," Rogue said, her happiness vanishing. "They met eventually."

"You and Bobby meet everyday," Narra pointed out.

"Yes, but we can't touch each other!"

Rogue was too anguished for Narra to feel amused, but her concern over physical contact did bring back wry memories of the hormone-laden angst of being a teenager. "Talk to him," she suggested. "See what happens. You might be surprised. He knows what your mutation is, after all, and he's still willing to have a relationship." She sensed surprise, and then at last a reduction in the unhappiness rolling off of the other girl.

"Maybe I will," Rogue said. "Anyway, I'd better get to bed. I'm sorry to have kept you up."

"I don't mind," Narra said, and she didn't. In fact, the night was so peaceful, and the stars so calm, that she stayed on the window seat for long moments after Rogue had left, staring outside.

-

Three weeks later, Narra walked downstairs in mid-morning and found herself in the midst of organized chaos. Nearly all the students were gathered, some wearing backpacks or carrying bags, all radiating varying degrees of excitement; their anticipation was so strong, especially among the younger ones, that Narra had to strengthen her empathic shields. The teachers, looking slightly harried, were herding all of the kids into vehicles. Off to the side she spotted Bobby and Rogue, holding hands while a put-out looking John hovered behind them. She smiled.

Scott spotted her. "Are you sure you don't want to come?"

Narra considered. The idea of visiting the museum which was the trip's destination didn't really appeal to her; the only reason she would go would be to help the teachers contol their young charges. Jean had assured her they didn't need help, though, however much present appearances belied that. "I think I'd rather stay and work in the lab," she said. "Have fun, though."

Apparently he couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not; she sensed his confusion and made sure her amusement didn't show on her face. Reaching out with her mind, she sent subtle suggestions of calm to the excited kids, watching in case they needed help getting everyone loaded. When they finally departed half an hour later, she went on to her lab.

-

It was late afternoon when she noticed it. At first she couldn't even name the feeling, but slowly it grew stronger, passing in waves, and she knew it was affecting a very wide area. It was anger and fear, and she could not sense a boundary to its extent.

Something was very wrong. She left the lab and made a complete round through the mansion, making sure nothing was out of order and the few kids who had stayed behind for various reasons were all where they should be. Only then did she turn on the TV to see if she could find what had upset so many people. And she quickly found it. She was still watching intently when the field trip returned; before she even saw their faces, one sense of the mental state of the adults told her that they already knew. Trouble was coming.

-

Narra woke suddenly in the middle of the night. It only took her a moment to identify what was wrong: soft footsteps coming towards her half-opened door, mingled with a heightened sense of anticipation.

She tied her robe tightly around her and was just about to open the door when she saw, reflected in the window, a soft light, and a man with a large gun. Narra flattened herself against the wall by the door and breathed silently, watching him come closer... closer... closer...

He pushed open the door and his gun swung towards the bed, tracking away too late as he realized it was empty. As soon as he appeared in the doorway she burst into motion, grabbing him with one hand over his mouth and delivering a hard blow to his throat with the edge of the other hand. He crumpled to the ground, paralyzed and unconscious; she flattened herself by the door in case any more intruders were forthcoming.

The invader was obviously military, whether the government's or someone else's; he wore camo gear and sophisticated equipment, complete with a head lamp and and ear-mounted communications device. The gun fired tranquilizer darts, not bullets.

_This is no burglar_. Narra took the gun and peered through the door at the window; the hall was filled with silent, menacing soldiers, who had taken up posts at the doorways and were firing inside. She gripped the gun, but there were too many...

A scream split the air and shattered the window. Narra knew instantly that it had to be Siryn, and the part of her mind that wasn't shying away in agony activated her power and pushed the scream back to a level that was merely painful. That wasn't important. What was important was that the soldiers were distracted. She stepped into the hallway and leveled the gun. It was unfamiliar, but by the time the screams ended, three of the soldiers were down. Another turned, saw her, aimed his weapon; she ducked across the hallway into the empty room as a tranquilizer dart flew centimeters from her head.

Kids were screaming. She clamped down on the raw surge of fear that swept through the mansion. The intruders had picked an ideal time, she realized; with the four fighting adults who were now absent, present, they would have had a hard fight on their hands.

That was also irrelevant for now. A feral roar echoed up from the first floor, and she knew it had to be Logan. He would fight until killed or knocked out, she knew; maybe he could save some of the students. _Time to go._

She ducked out of the room and fired down the hall, catching the soldier who had shot at her in the back. Suddenly the attackers all turned and ran for the other end of the hallway, pursuing someone she couldn't see.

A new sound: helicopters. Through the window at the other end of the hall she could see lights; there were intruders in the garden. From someone in the house came again the sound of shattering glass, and more screams and roars. She thought she heard a wall crumbling. _Time to even the odds_.

-

Narra slipped through the house like a cat, moving as silently as the intruders and surprising them around dark intersections and corners. When she ran out of ammunition, she picked up another carbine from someone who was too slow to dodge her missiles; the gun also proved to be an effective club when used in conjunction with karate.

The intruders were throughout the house, and they weren't averse to using explosives. Her safety lay in the shadows; one dart would be enough to put her out of the fight permanently.

Her body count was up to five when she heard shouting up ahead: the shouting of students. She ran through the halls. They had to figure out what was going on, and if there was a way out. When she got there, though, the last of the students were disappearing into a tunnel in the wall, one she'd not known about. _There _is_ a way out!_ But she still heard childrens' voices in the mansion. She couldn't leave yet.

Making her silent way towards the area that still seemed populated took her through a downstairs foyer peopled with dead bodies; they all had slash marks or stab marks. Logan had been here, and the enemy had paid the price.

Suddenly there were voices just around the corner from her; she flattened herself into the shadows, knowing it wouldn't hide her from the glaring lights. She readied her gun with one hand and prepared to kick--

Two children came hurtling screaming around the corner. Heavy footsteps thudded after them, and two trios of darts embedded themselves in the wall above their heads. Narra exploded forward and slammed the gun barrel into the face of the first pursuer as he appeared; the second gun was already tracking towards her...

She fell to the floor and swept out with her feet, knocking the soldier's legs out from under him. Before he could recover she was on him, driving a blow deep into his sternum. He fell back, gasping for air, and then was still. She hit him over the head with the gun to be sure.

The two children were watching her with huge eyes. She sent a hurried suggestion of calm as she scrambled to her feet. "Do you know where the tunnels are?" she whispered, every sense on alert against more intruders.

The girl nodded dumbly.

"Where do they go?"

"Past the gardens," the boy whispered.

"Good. I'm going to try to get you to the entrance."

"The entrance is right over there," the girl said, pointing.

Narra blinked. Of course there would be more than one way into the tunnels in a house this size. She took off her robe and handed it to the boy. "Take this to keep you warm. I want you to get in the tunnels and run. Don't stop running when you get out-- go as far back in the woods as you can, towards the mountains, and _hide_."

"Can we find Colossus?"

"Colossus?"

"He led a bunch of students out," the boy, who was older, explained. "But we got espa... epsa... separated."

Narra nodded. "Then find him if you can. Here, take this." On impulse she handed the boy the tranquilizer gun. "Shoot the soldiers if they see you, but _stay out of sight!_" She shepherded them towards the panel the girl had pointed to. "Now hurry."

"Aren't you coming with us?" the girl wanted to know.

Narra slid the false panel shut behind them. "No."

-

It got harder to slip through the house unnoticed; it was swarming with soldiers. Down a hall she glimpsed Rogue, Bobby and John disappearing into a tunnel; they had Logan with them. They were too far away to call out to, and as they vanished there was an explosion nearby. She had to sprint away to avoid being caught by the soldiers who followed.

At one point she realized that she didn't hear any more screaming children. That had to mean the mansion was fully occupied, and her footstpes became harder to muffle. She had to be the last one there. She finally admitted that it was too dangerous; she had to get out. If she was captured, and they found out what she could do...

All told she'd gotten ten kids out, sending them through the tunnels and picking off their pursuit. She'd probably accounted for fifteen or twenty soldiers. But there was one more thing she had to do.

Doubling back, at one point crawling through the ceiling space, she made her way to the lab. Her laptop, with all the precious data, was upstairs under her mattress. If it was found, hopefully the multilayered redundant password protection and encryption would slow down any hackers. She didn't think it would hold out indefinitely, but there was no way she could go back for it.

Thankfully, her lab seemed untouched. She quickly punched in the combination on the keypad that kept it locked when she wasn't in, slipped inside, and locked it again. The right refrigerator held only chemicals, but she climbed up on the counter, unplugged the left one, and yanked the door open. The petri plates she opened, exposing them to the air and spitting in them; the test tubes she uncapped, regretting the time it took to open each one, and tipped over. By the time anyone thought to see what kind of experimentation she was performing, the mutant DNA would be contaminated or drained away.

Narra leapt back on the counter and vaulted onto the top of the refrigerator, knocking aside one of the ceiling tiles. Then, to her horror, she saw a soldier staring in at her through the window.

She sprung into the ceiling space as the soldier shattered the glass and sent a dart quivering into the foam tile mere inches from her knee; at the same time the door slid open with an electronic _click_. _Lock-scrambler_, she realized.

"There's a mutant in the--" Narra sent a strong burst of surprise as the soldier who was calling out through his microphone, turning his sentence into a yell and giving her the time she needed to shoot him. A second soldier burst into the room through the door; she knocked loose a ceiling tile into his field of fire, fouling his vision long enough for her to drop him as well. After waiting a bare second to see if anyone else was coming, she scrambled to her feet and fled through the ceiling space. As soon as someone saw the missing ceiling tiles, they'd know where she was. She had to be gone by then,

She climbed to the second floor by means of a utility ladder on the inside of one of the walls and dropped back into the hallway around the corner from the first tunnel she'd seen. Suddenly there was a child crying, and she hurtled around the corner in time to see two things: soldiers shooting a child discovered in his hiding place, and another soldier, stepping back to give his comrades room, running directly into the hidden panel. It swung open with a _click_.

"What the--"

Charging six armed men was idiotic; she'd taken on at most two at a time before. She managed to shoot two before the new attack registered. As the others swung their arms to bear, Narra closed with the lead man, ducking under his gun and bodily hauling him to be between her and the other attackers. Three darts thudded into his back and he slumped against her. Grabbing his gun and firing over his shoulder, she hit the man closest to her. The two down the hall fired at her-- she ducked their bolts, and then they were retreating, taking the unconscious child with them.

She ran after them. One fell to her tranquilizer gun, but as the second turned to face her, she realized she was out of darts. Her opponent realized it, too, and smiled wickedly as he leveled his gun.

She threw the empty carbine at him; it hit his gun arm and threw his aim off enough that the dart whistled past her shoulder, so close she could feel the air. Before he could shoot again she tackled him, dragging him to the ground with momentum and surprise.

It was a mistake, and only quick reflexes saved her life as he hauled a long knife out of his sleeve. Before he could strike she elbowed him hard in the solar plexus and then kneed him in the groin; he collapsed with a _whoosh!_ of outrushing air, and she hit him hard in the head to make sure he was down.

Hands shaking, she retrieved the unconscious child who had fallen to the ground in the fight and fled back towards the tunnel. She paused only long enough to retrieve the jackets and carbines of the four fallen men before she ducked inside, yanked the panel down, and _ran_.

- - -

A/N: Well, we're up to X2 now. The next chapter will pick up immediately on the heels of this one and go to the end of the movie. Then on to the really interesting stuff.

If no one's interested in this, please leave me a review and let me know. I'll still write it, to get it done before X3 changes my ideas of the story, but I won't post it if no one wants to read it.


	5. Survival

A/N: This is a doozy of a chapter—7,000 words—but it takes the story through the end of X2. On to the original stuff.

If you're reading this, I really would appreciate reviews, even if you didn't like it. And I do accept anonymous reviews.

**BIG BOLD NOTE: I have not seen X3. I will not see it until this story is complete. Please, if you review, do not include spoilers for it, or criticize me for being uncanonical to X3. Thank you.**

- - -

The sound of her bare feet slapping against the cold stone floor was unbearably loud to her ears. She went as fast as she could, but carrying the boy, the guns, and the jackets was awkward; she was forced to stop to shift her burdens around.

Exits opened off of the tunnel, but outside each of them wary alertness indicated the presence of soldiers. So she kept running, hoping that the end of the tunnel was unguarded. If it wasn't... well, she'd been in tight situations before.

Squinting, she stifled a wave of relief as she saw starlight glinting through a grate ahead; a quick survey of the area indicated only faint concentrations of emotion, which were diffusing out of the mansion. She shifted her burdens again, readying one of the tranquilizer guns; then she swung the grate open, slipped out, and shut it behind her.

Narra hugged the walls as she headed for the dense forest, wary for the surge of emotion that would indicate she'd been spotted. She had to find Peter and the others; how many had gotten out? She knew the soldiers had managed to take some of the children.

She risked stopping once she reached the cover of the trees to spread out her senses and search for a concentration of emotion. That coming from the mansion made it difficult to find, like a larger heat source obscuring a target on an infrared radar, but finally she tasted it: fear, apprehension, excitement, wariness. Straight ahead.

She ran again. Twigs on the ground cut into her feet, and larger branches slashed at her exposed legs; after giving up her robe, she'd been fighting in loose shorts and a tank top. She was able to shield the boy in her arms from the overhanging limb, but knew that she'd be bloody when she stopped.

Where were they? Narra had to stop to get her bearings again. She was running straight towards the foothills, listening for emotion ahead of her and behind her. The mansion would not occupy the soldiers forever; if they were really serious about taking the place, they'd start sending out patrols. The students had to be gone before that happened.

She kept running, her breathing ragged in her own ears. It was a familiar feeling after six weeks on the run, and one she'd hoped never to experience again: fleeing for her safety. But now the haven she thought she'd found had been destroyed mere weeks after her arrival. Did she have anything to do with it? Had her shadowy enemies found her, and gotten desperate enough to launch a full-fledged attack against the mutant refuge? If so, they'd succeeded: the precious DVD was destroyed, but the data it had contained was on her laptop, in the mansion's central computers, and uploaded onto a very secure server.

One thought comforted her: if they were still after her, they hadn't gotten her family.

Preoccupied, she didn't notice the shift in emotion in her surroundings, and almost ran straight into the figure who appeared out of the darkness.

Instinctively she put her hands up to block a blow, but the boy and the guns fouled her reach. She recognized the person in front of her. "Narra!" he said, his voice laden with surprise.

"Peter," she gasped, trying to breathe normally now that she was stopped. She looked around the area, and slowly her eyes made the shadowy shapes of children. There were more than she'd dared to hope, perhaps forty. Over on the far side of the clearing she saw Kitty Pryde, the phaser; near one of the trees, surrounded by children, was Hope, or Trance. She didn't see any of the other older students.

"We didn't think you'd make it out," he said, taking the boy from her, as well as the bundled jackets. The latter he frowned down at. "What are those?"

"Supplies," she said. "Some of the kids can use them to keep warm. I would have brought more if I could." She realized her hands were shaking.

"Are you alright?"

"I was stupid," she said. "I tackled a soldier."

"Did you get hurt?"

"No." She shook her head. Her distress lay in the knowledge of her own folly, not in injury.

Of course he could tell that there was something else in the garments, but he didn't ask. Instead, Peter said, "Is anyone else coming?"

Narra shook her head, still trying to catch her breath. "If they're not out by now, they're not getting out," she said. "I was the last one." She looked around at the assembled students. "We have to move. They could scan the area with heat sensors."

"We can go back towards the mountains," he said. "The rock might foul their readings."

Narra nodded. "There are caves back there. I saw them on my way in. We can hide in them." She looked at the children again. "I'll keep them calm if you tell them where we're going."

-

Colossus looked at her. When Austin and Jane had told him that she'd sent them ahead, he hadn't thought she'd been able to get out, but children had kept appearing, saying she'd helped them get out. Narra herself had not appeared, and he'd given her up for captured.

Now she appeared against all odds, having rearguarded the mansion as long as she could. And somehow she'd managed to defeat at least four soldiers and take their weapons, then escape, carrying a last child out with her as well. "You lead the way," he said. "You know where we're going. Kitty and Hope can keep the kids in line. I'll bring up the rear." He hoped she wouldn't argue.

-

Narra had no intention of arguing with logic. "All right," she said. Then she took the bundle from him, opened it, and handed him a gun. "You should have this. I'll give the other two to Kitty and Hope."

She made her way through the students, giving the jackets to the littlest ones to share, to the other two elder students. "Take these." She handed them the trank guns; surprise roiled off of them, at both her appearance and the weapons. "We're heading for the hills. Can you get the children in a group?" Suiting actions to words, she quietly gathered the nearest students and explained what they were doing, adding a request that the older ones help the younger ones along. Calming suggestions helped, and very soon the students were ready to move. There were seven with them who had been shot with darts; Narra, Peter, Hope, and Kitty each carried one. Two of the older students carried one each, and two more students managed to support the last child, who was starting to stir, between them.

They made their way through the trees, away from the barely-visible lights of the mansion and into the darkness of the hills. Kitty, Hope and Peter managed to keep them fairly quiet, but each whisper or suppressed yelp seemed to reverberate forever. Narra walked as fast as she could in the darkness, but the pace was still slow enough that the students behind could keep up.

A young girl made her way through the group to Narra's side, and held up her closed hand. "Here," she whispered, and slowly opened her fingers, letting a faint glow escape that illuminated the ground a few feet ahead.

Narra considered quickly. The light wasn't strong enough to be seen very far, she decided. "Thank you," she said. "But I can see well enough. Can you take that back to the other students and help them?" The girl-- Alicia, she remembered-- nodded and disappeared again.

They walked for maybe forty-five minutes. Narra's feet were numb from walking, and some of the children were starting to cry softly. She sent calm and soothing back towards them, knowing they had to stop soon. But the increasing prevalence of rocks under her feet made her hope that they were near to the foothills. Soon the ground started to rise, and she knew they were close.

Narra stopped abruptly. Before her gaped a hole that was darker than the surrounding night. It was the entrance to one of the caves she remembered.

Peter came up beside her and transformed, his metal skin gleaming faintly. "I'll see what's inside." He disappeared into the darkness.

She looked around for Alicia and found her. "Can you stand at the entrance and light his way?" she asked quietly. The girl nodded, put her hand gingerly into the dark hole, and opened it; the strong glow was contained by the stone walls, providing light to Peter but not to anyone who might be searching for the students. Over Alicia's shoulder Narra could see that the cave was large, large enough to hold all of them with room to spare; the back stretched out into darkness.

After a tense moment, Peter reemerged, his hair filled with dirt and dead leaves. "It's clear."

The four young adults stood by the entrance as the students filed past them and crawled inside; then Kitty and Hope followed them. "What now?" Pete asked quietly.

Narra thought. "First, we have to find out who is here and who is missing," she said. "Then we see what condition those awakening from the darts are in. Then we decide what to do next."

Getting the kids into groups kept them warm, and allowed them to be counted easier. Several minutes of looking at faces yielded the information that there were twelve children missing.

"What about Logan?" Peter asked. "I saw him right before we went into the tunnel."

"He got out with Bobby, John and Rogue," Narra said. "That is, they got into the tunnel. I don't know if they made it out." She was pretty sure they had, though; had the Wolverine been captured, there would have been a fight large enough that she surely would have noticed.

"Then we're down to nine."

Kitty frowned. "I think... I think Rogue sent two of the little girls through the tunnel and told them to go to the first house they saw," she said. "It was Attior and Bresthana."

One of the younger students, who had an affinity for words, had pen and paper; Narra made a list of all the children they had with them, and the seven whose whereabouts were unknown. Then she looked over at the seven children who were with them but still unconscious. Only time would tell what ill effects the tranquilizer darts would have. For now, she made sure they were as comfortable as they could be in a dirty cave.

She and Peter flanked the narrow entrance, talking in quiet voices as they watched the children. Kitty and Hope comforted the younger ones, who had started crying again. Narra projected soothing suggestions at them.

"What were they after?" Peter asked. "And why would they want us?"

Narra shook her head, remembering her earlier postulation that the soldiers had been after her data. But that made no sense. Why would they take the children? A stray memory, overheard from the air ducts, came back to her. "They wanted Cerebro. I have no idea why."

"They might still come after us here," Peter said, his voice quiet with worry.

She nodded. "I know. We'll have to start posting guards. Maybe one of the students has an optical mutation that could be helpful..." Their needs swirled through her head, and she sorted them into categories. They formed two: one devoted to surviving, and one devoted to staying out of the clutches of the soldiers. She wished they had some way to get in contact with any of the adults who had left, but knew it was a futile hope. It occurred to her that the teachers might even have been lured out of the way; the attack had come at such an unpropitious time it was hard to believe the timing coincidental.

"We need food and water," she said, thinking out loud. "We need an escape route and a way to stay hidden. And we need to keep the children calm."

Peter opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by a rising wail. Kitty and Narra both hurried to the girl's side to comfort and quiet her, but her agitation was contagious. "What're we gonna do?" echoed through the cave.

Narra closed her eyes and tried to calm them until they were quiet. "It's going to be all right," she said when she could be heard. "We're safe here now."

"But what are we going to _do_?" It was one of the younger students who asked, a boy with curly blonde hair, an angelic and rather dirty face, and brilliant orange cat-like eyes.

"We gonna live out here forever?" his older brother added, his-- more normal-- eyes shining at the prospect of the adventure.

Narra shook her head. "The Professor and Ms. Munroe and Dr. Grey and Mr. Summers should be back soon. They'll be able to help us."

"What if they don't come back?"

She looked down; the voice had come from near her knee. A girl was looking up at her with huge green eyes, sucking her thumb. The cave became silent as everyone waited to hear what she would respond. Narra could understand their anxiety: far too many of them had had parents walk out on them, or throw them out, or abandon them at the Institute. It was a wonder they trusted the teachers at all.

"Then we'll go over the mountains," she answered. "I did it on my way here. We'll leave Salem and go somewhere safe." Narra looked at Peter. They both knew that, while she might have managed to cross the lower regions of the Catskills without much difficulty, getting forty young children across would be nearly impossible. They also both knew that if help didn't come, they'd have to do it. "Hopefully we'll be able to go back to the mansion. But if not, we'll just start over somewhere else." She looked around; most of them seemed at least partially reassured. "For now, try to get some sleep."

"But I'm hungry," whined one of the older boys.

"If you're asleep, you won't notice," she said. "And we'll try to get some food for you when you wake up." Slowly, aided by Narra's gentle empathic suggestions, most of the students settled down, huddling together in groups for warmth.

She rejoined Peter by the door, and Kitty and Hope joined them as well. "How long are you going to wait?" Peter asked.

She considered, weighing the dangers of staying, the dangers of leaving, and the likelihood of the teachers returning with substantial help. "Three days," she said at last.

Hope looked surprised. "That's it?"

Narra nodded. "We have to plan for the worst," she said quietly. "Assume the teachers aren't coming back." Which means they would be entirely responsible for not only getting the children to safety, but taking care of them when they got to wherever they were going, perhaps for a long time. "At first light I'll go out and look for food and water."

"Did you see any when you came through here last month?" Peter asked.

"No," she admitted. "But I wasn't really looking."

"Narra, do you still have that list?" Kitty asked. Narra pulled it from the crevice in the rock where she'd tucked it and handed it to her. "Some of the children might be able to help us with their mutations."

"That's a good idea," Narra said as Kitty started perusing the list.

Hope went back to the children, and Kitty sat in the corner, writing by the faint starlight that drifted in through a crack in the rock. "Why don't you get some sleep," Peter suggested. "I'm not tired. I can stand watch for a while."

He might have been lying, or perhaps he was just running on adrenaline; Narra's own adrenaline had worn off long ago. Either way, she wasn't going to argue.

She curled up near the entrance to the cave and drifted off, keeping her senses alert even in sleep, and sending soothing suggestions towards the children. Slowly, the noise in the cave lessened and was replaced by the sounds of quiet breathing.

-

"Narra."

She was on her feet in an instant, noting as she did so that it was early morning and the sun was rising. Peter was standing outside the mouth of the cave; she joined him, blinking against the sudden light.

"There." He pointed. Scarcely visible through the trees was the mansion, looking deceptively intact in the early morning light. Tiny dots that had to be soldiers were swarming in and out of it, but as she watched, she discerned a pattern to their movement. Narra frowned and squinted, trying to see better.

It was unmistakable: they were leaving. Two large trucks, troop transports, slowly pulled out of the driveway, laden with soldiers. The blades of the helicopters started slowly revolving, the _whuff-whuff-whuff_ audible even across the distance. More men emerged carrying equipment which they loaded into the waiting jeeps.

"It could be a trap," Peter said. She nodded, trying to read the emotions of the departing men, but they were too far away and too calm.

"We should get everyone back from the entrance in case the helicopters fly over," she said.

They did not fly over the cave; instead, they circled the mansion lazily before heading straight north. Narra watched them through the crack in the roof until they were out of sight, bright gleams vanishing against the blue sky. Then she stood and picked up one of the jackets that the children had discarded when the sun started to warm the cave. "I'm going for food," she told Peter, and picked up the tranquilizer gun from where she'd laid it the night before.

She looked down at the mansion again. It appeared deserted, but they had no way of telling for sure. Unless one of the students could tell through a mutation? She'd have to ask Kitty.

She headed uphill towards the mountains. The landscape was vaguely familiar; she must have taken this route through the hills the month before. As she'd told Peter, she hadn't been looking for food then. The scant supplies in her backpack had been enough to get her to the mansion, and she'd been more worried about avoiding any ambush her mysterious pursuers ahd arranged.

Now she kept her eyes open, not quite sure what she could bring back. Most things were _edible_, when it came down to it, but leaves and twigs, for example, were neither palatable nor nourishing. Still, it was summer, and she out to be able to find something.

Thirty minutes' steady walking and searching brought her to a clump of blackberry bushes bearing early fruit. She buttoned the jacket and tied the sleeves in knots, intending to use it as a sack; only when she ventured into the thicket did she realize that she ought to have brought another jacket to protect her arms from the sharp brambles. The pain, though aggravating, was easily disregarded, and she picked steadily.

Some forty minutes later the jacket was full and the bushes were nearly stripped of all the ripe fruit. Before she returned to the cave she climbed higher into the mountains, exploring their surroundings, until she came to a nearly vertical cliff face.

About to turn back, she let the jacket of blackberries rest for a moment and studied the ascent. Then she looked over her shoulder, confirming that she was out of sight of the mansion. Wedging her bare feet into a crevice in the rock, she began to climb.

Narra's arms and legs were shaking with fatigue and her exposed skin was scraped raw ten minutes later when she achieved her goal, a wide ledge outside of a dark hole in the rock. This cave entrance was tall enough to walk into without stooping over, and the cave itself was spacious and dry. Reemerging into the sunlight, she noticed a faint but distinct trail leading away from one end of the ledge, and descended that way instead of climbing back down.

It was midmorning by the time she returned to the others. Kitty was on top of the cave, watching all the approaches, gun at her side. Peter and Hope were sleeping inside, as were most of the children. She decided not to wake them, but put the full jacket and its precious contents on a ledge out of the way, then looked over Kitty's list. It was promising: a girl named Ashlyn had the hoped-for optical mutation that allowed her to see long distances and gave rise to her nickname, "Eagle Eyes"; one of the older students was a telekinetic.

One of the youngest awoke, crying, and when Narra went to soothe her, she whimpered that she was thirsty. Of course; water would be more of a pressing need than food.

"There's a stream not far away," Peter said, coming up behind her.

She nodded. She'd scouted it on the way back, traveling as far upstream as she could along its banks to check for possible sources of contamination. She'd found no litter or dead animal carcasses, but that didn't mean it was safe to drink from. "What if they get dysentery or giardiasis?" she asked quietly, twisting around to look up at him. He was silent. Dysentery, if untreated, could be fatal.

"I found it first!" The cranky voice of a child broke through their worries, and Narra looked over to see two young students fighting over an opaque black pouch. She walked over to them. "What's wrong?"

"I found this in the jacket," the girl-- Elyse-- whimpered, "and he took it from me!"

In the jacket? "May I see it?"

They relinquished the object to the neutral party, and she examined it. It was a rectangle a little larger than her hand and nearly flat. The zipper was hidden in the fold of one seam. Opening it, she found a variety of small items in plastic cases and what looked like a Ziploc bag. She sat down with her back to the wall to have both hands free.

The small items turned out to be a small, slender knife, a lighter, a compass, and a case of water purification powder. After unfolding the flexible plastic a few times, she realized it was a poncho. It was ultra-thin, but when she tugged at the edge, it didn't stretch or tear.

She looked up to see the two children watching her. "Can you show me where you got this?"

Examination of the other two jackets produced two more black pouches from hidden inner pockets, and she showed the finds to Peter. He turned them over in his hands.

"Military-issue survival gear," he said, and looked up. "Now we know who we're dealing with."

"They could have gotten it from a surplus supplier," she said.

Peter shook his head. "This is top of the line. It wouldn't be available to civilians. In fact, it probably wouldn't be available to the regular armed forces."

"Good news?" Hope came up behind them, rubbing her eyes.

"We found a way to get clean water," Narra said. "And I brought back food." She didn't mention that elite forces of the United States military had been responsible for the attack on the mansion. There was nothing they could do about it, and it would only serve to frighten. "If you and Kitty can pass out the food, I'll start hauling water."

The blackberries, when they were distributed, provided only a few mouthfuls to each student. Narra ate only three, leaving the rest of hers in the common pile. She was used to hunger. Peter went out to look for more food as Hope and Narra brought water from the stream, placing it in a makeshift basin constructed from one of the ponchos suspended on sturdy branches wedged into crevices in the rock floor. "Should we try to boil it?"

She shook her head. "Let's use the powder for now. We don't want to risk smoke."

The water appeased the children for a while, but Peter returned midafternoon, emptyhanded. "I can't find anything edible," he said quietly, making sure the children didn't hear.

"Let me try," Narra said, putting on a jacket and picking up a gun. "I'll go over the mountain if I have to."

She had no better luck than he did, and was finally forced to return at sundown, bruised and thwarted. Kitty had managed to find some mushrooms she knew were edible, as well as some tubers, and they'd cleaned another batch of water so that the kids could at least fill their stomachs, but if they couldn't find food now, they'd never be able to make it across the mountains.

"I'm going down to the mansion," Peter told her after the sun had set. Anticipating an argument, he added, "We can't go much longer without food. It'll give me a chance to see if any soldiers are left. And my skin is impervious to anything they can shoot at me."

Narra knew he was right, much as she disliked the idea of anyone going back there. She would have preferred to have been the one to go into danger-- she knew her own abilities. But again, his logic was unarguable. She could be felled by a transquilizer dart or a bullet; he could not. So all she said was, "Be careful."

He nodded and disappeared into the darkness.

The night was colder than before, and everyone shivered, though the three large ponchos helped. Even the older children started to whimper, and the feeling that permeated the cave was not one of fear. It was misery and despair.

Narra tried to use her empathy to calm them and comfort them. She took two of the smaller children on her lap to try to keep them warm. The night wore on, but no one slept. Some of the students cried quietly, and Hope and Kitty were too exhausted to reassure them; she couldn't blame them. So she gently shifted the two kids off of her lap and went around to all of the crying ones, trying to ease their misery.

It worked for a few hours; some of them fell into a fitful sleep. Around what she thought was midnight, though, they started to wake again, mostly from nightmares. "I was running and running from the soldiers but they still got me," Ashlyn sobbed furiously.

"Shh, shh," Narra whispered. "It's all right. You're going to be fine. They didn't get you..."

It was a long, long night. She worried that Peter had been caught; how long had he been gone? Hours? What time was it?

She worried about the students who had been captured. Was the military going to experiment on them? She'd seen the results of one such experiment; one day, after he had left, Jean had told her about Logan in order to explain his quest.

And she worried about the teachers. Where were they? Storm and Jean had gone to Boston the afternoon before. It was not even half an hour by jet, and they should have returned long ago. She didn't know where Scott and the Professor were.

"We're gonna die."

The quiet murmur caught her ear and she sat upright. "We are _not_ going to die," she said, looking around. Some forty-odd pairs of eyes met hers, mostly blank and hollow. All the students were awake, and many of them seemed to share the speaker's sentiments. "We're not going to die," she repeated. "We're going to be fine. Peter's going to come back with food, and tomorrow we'll move farther up into the mountains where you don't have to stay cramped up in a cave." She projected as much courage and hope into her voice as she could.

"Tell us how you walked from Pittsburgh."

The request was totally unexpected. Looking around, she saw the speaker was a young girl with huge, green solemn eyes. Unlike the others, she didn't radiate disheartenment; her empathic sense was surprisingly calm. The others perked up, just a little; somehow, this girl had known that a distraction was needed, and had known how to provide one.

So Narra told them. She told them about eating from soup kitchens, and sleeping on park benches, and washing her clothes every other day in public restrooms and wearing them wet. She told them about hiking through the mountains, and about falling into a swift-flowing river and getting carried ten miles downstream before she could get out. She told them about walking in the woods in the warm summer evenings, the soft breeze blowing and the gentle night sounds surrounding her. At such times she had forgotten everything else: her hunger, the oozing blisters on her feet, her worry for her family, her apprehension at being pursued.

She tried to make it sound like an adventure, knowing they might be facing the exact same thing very soon. Whether she succeeded or not was uncertain, but at least she had the undivided attention of her listeners. For a time the mental sense of the cave lightened, and she felt better herself. Narra had not realized, tired as she was, how much the childrens' pessimism had been affecting her own mood.

"What's in that backpack you always had with you?" asked Elyse.

"A change of clothes," Narra said. "Spare socks. A poncho. A map. A bottle of water. A jacket. A little money. And peanut butter."

"Peanut butter?"

She nodded. "It's what I lived on when I couldn't get anything else." Sometimes she'd gone a week at a time surviving on a few tablespoons of peanut butter a day. Even a month later, she was still heartily sick of the taste.

"Tell us another story," a boy said sleepily.

Narra didn't know any stories to tell; looking after children was not something she had envisioned herself doing very often. But forty pairs of eyes were watching her expectantly. So she said, "Once upon a time there was a girl, with light green skin and long blue hair and bright golden eyes. She was very beautiful, and also very smart..." Narra made the rest up as she went along.

It was probably the longest night of her life thus far, telling stories in the interminable darkness, trying to keep the children warm and quiet, and worrying about Peter. She had no way of telling how much time had passed since his departure; there was no moon that night.

Everyone else was asleep when he returned at what she guessed was very early morning. Her senses told her someone was approaching, so she silently picked up a trank gun and slipped out of the cave, concealing herself behind some rocks. When she saw it was Peter, she stood up quickly. He was carrying two large garbage bags over his shoulders.

"The house is deserted," he told her quietly. "They took their equipment and their dead. I brought back as much as I could carry from the kitchen."

"Their dead?"

"Logan."

Narra nodded in comprehension.

Peter hesitated. "And perhaps me as well." She remembered seeing a man-sized hole in the wall near the tunnel, and belatedly understood where it had come from.

"Most of them are sleeping," she said. "We can feed them when they wake up. What were you able to bring back?"

He opened the bags and show her. It was all wrapped, she noted, which was a wise decision. Unopened boxes of cereal, granola bars, several boxes of applesauce, more of pudding cups, and even some fruit in a hard plastic container. She looked in the other bags: cans.

"I brought a can opener," he assured her.

Narra nodded and looked deeper in the second bag. Under the cans was a stack of blankets and some jugs of water.

"I found some soap, too," Peter said.

"Good. Some of the kids have cuts that are starting to fester." She picked up one of the bags and carried it towards the cave. "This morning I found a bigger cave up in the mountains that's closer to running water and more secure. I'd like to try to relocate there tomorrow."

"Where is it?"

She described the location to him, adding, "I climbed up the cliff face to get there, but there's also a path."

He nodded. "After the kids are fed it should be a lot easier." They took the bags into the caved and moved quietly around the sleeping children, covering them with the blankets. Then Narra, convincing Peter that she wasn't tired, went outside with a blanket and sat until morning keeping watch, her worries much lighter for the relief of the most immediate evils.

-

The next morning was much easier. The students woke to the prospect of food, and though it was soon apparent that they'd have to make another trip to the Mansion if help did not come, there was enough for everyone. After breakfast Narra took the girls to the stream to wash as best as they could, cautioning them not to get it in their mouths, and when they returned Peter took the boys. Following that, they moved to the higher cave, where most of the children slept once again.

It happened in early afternoon. One moment the students were running around the cave in a quiet game of Tag, and the next moment they were on the ground, screaming in agony.

Narra felt like a million hot knives were taking her body apart, and it took all of her self-control not to scream herself as she fought to keep her mind clear. The pain threatened to overwhelm her, and the empathic echoes of the agony around her made her cover her ears in a futile gesture. Instinctively she struck out with her mutation-- and the pain lessened, just a little.

_Got-- to-- fight-- it_, she thought, using her powers to reduce the pain to a manageable level so she could sit and lean back against the wall. Then she closed her eyes and used all her strength to _push_, creating a bubble of blankness around the students. Slowly, harrowingly slowly, she pushed the bubble out, making it larger and stronger. Slowly, the students sat up, and the excruciating empathic pain in her head died away.

"What--" Peter said, looking at her, but she shook her head. She had to concentrate.

Some of the youngest ones started to cry, and the mental sense of confusion surrounded her. More faintly, she still sensed pain. This was not a local phenomenon, then. It had to be a very powerful mutant doing this-- whatever _this_ was.

Sensing she needed to concentrate, even if they didn't know why, the other three kept the students quiet, and as calm as they could. And then suddenly the pressure on her mind was gone, and she dropped the shields.

"What was that?" Ashlyn asked quietly. None of the young adults could answer her.

Narra relaxed against the wall, wiping sweat from her face. The memory of the pain still bothered her, like the phantom hurt that crept up when you were about to get back on a bicycle for the first time after taking a nasty spill. But its source was gone, and echoes of relief swept through her mind, soothing it.

Then the second psionic wave struck.

Later she was told that she screamed and fell to the floor. All she knew at the time was that the world was on fire with agony. It clawed and tore at her until she nearly lost her sense of self and became lost in the pain. It buffeted her until she thought she would pass out-- until she wanted to pass out, just to end it.

Her strongest empathic shields couldn't block the agony. Dimly she felt hands on her shoulders, heard someone who might have been Peter calling her name, but all her attention was turned inward. Narra threw all of her strength into making a bubble and threw it outward.

It barely had any effect. She _shoved_, trying to shrink her shield so that it blocked the mutant who was causing the whole world to writhe in agony rather than blocked the world from the mutant, but she was too far away. Still, she didn't give up, and concentrated with every fiber of her being.

Time became meaningless. There was her, there was the shield, and there was the suffering. Narra was aware of nothing else. The echoes in her head went on, and on, and on, and she held the shield. There was no way she could block this mutation completely. It was too strong, and too far away, and affecting too many people. But still she held the shield, and thought the agony she sensed lessened a little.

Centuries passed, or it might have been minutes. The pain she sensed empathically stopped abruptly, just as the pain she felt physically had earlier. She slumped to the ground semiconscious.

-

It was early in the evening when a boy said, "Listen!"

They all stopped what they were doing, but no one else could hear anything. The boy, a superauditory, said, "I hear the Blackbird."

Narra got to her feet unsteadily, went outside, and looked up. There in the east was a tiny bright spot against the darkening eastern horizon; it quickly grew until everyone could hear it approach.

She reached out with her empathy; the occupants of the plane were easily located. As the children cheered, she felt the wild grief of the X-Men. "They lost someone," she said quietly to Peter, who was next to her.

"You mean someone died?" he said. She could sense the dismay rolling off of him.

Narra nodded, and something else about the emotions of the people on the plane caught her attention. The most violent ones belonged to two minds. One she couldn't identify, but the other, radiating wild rage and sadness, tinged with darkness, was familiar to her. That the owner of the mind should feel so strongly could mean only one thing. "They lost Dr. Grey."

-

Logan stared down at the ground beneath the plane without seeing it. What he did see was the water crashing over Jean again and again, the body of the woman he loved disappearing forever beneath the giant wave.

_No!_ He clenched his fists. _I need her_.

Across the aisle Scott was slumped against a bulkhead, utterly still; Storm was piloting the plane by herself. No one spoke. Looking around, he saw grief etched on everyone's face, as well as confusion. _Why her? Why did it have to be her?_

"What about everyone else?" Rogue broke the silence, her Southern drawl worried. "What about the students?"

"We'll find them," Xavier said with a reassuring smile. From the depths of his grief, Logan grudgingly admired how the other man could still find it within himself to comfort others. "Logan, you said Peter helped get many of them out?"

"Yeah," he growled softly after a moment.

"They had Kitty with them," Bobby said. "She would have helped."

"And Narra," Logan added, not realizing he was doing the same thing as Xavier by trying to reassure Rogue. Dim memories of the fight returned to him, and he recalled coming across several incapacitated bodies that had no marks on them. "She would've got 'em out."

"Down there," Xavier murmured, and everyone turned to look at him. "Storm: take us down. The students are down there."

-

Mechanically he helped load the students onto the Blackbird. Some of them chattered quietly, oblivious to the grief around them, for the Professor would not tell them about Jean until they were settled back at the mansion. More of them were silent, and on their faces he read the marks of an ordeal.

Looking at Colossus, though, something was different. Somehow, he knew; it was apparent in his silence, and in the silent sympathy of his looks. Logan turned away. He didn't want sympathy.

Then he saw Narra, and knew she knew as well. Then he looked closer and frowned: she was a lot paler than usual. "What happened to her? She get hurt or something?"

Peter shook his head slowly. "I'm-- not sure. She-- this afternoon there was suddenly so much pain. It came out of nowhere. Somehow I think she stopped it. And then--" he frowned. "A few minutes later she screamed and collapsed, and it was as if she was fighting something for a few minutes. Then she nearly passed out."

He looked at Logan curiously, but the other man only swore softly as he comprehended. Narra could block other mutants' powers; of course she would have protected the students. And her empathy would have allowed her to sense when the rest of the world was attacked. She'd tried to fight one of the most powerful mutants in the world when his powers were amplified by the Cerebro mock-up. She was d lucky to be alive.

Logan wondered how the Professor was going to break that one to the kids: that he'd been the one to hurt them. Half of them probably already resented him for not being there when the place was attacked. And then he'd have to tell them that Jean had--

_Jean_. Logan slumped against the window.

-

The mechanism to open the hangar from the plane wasn't working, so Narra, who was closest to the hatch, jumped down and made her way through the deserted mansion to the lower levels to open it from there.

The mansion showed signs of a battle: shattered glass was everywhere, furniture was overturned and rearranged, debris from explosions lined some of the hallways. And the soldiers had left their refuse in the form of used cigarette butts. One hallway was waterlogged where the sprinklers had automatically put out a fire, probably caused by one of those butts.

Somehow they found places for all the students to sleep. Narra's room was unotuched; her laptop was where she had left it. She put the four tranquilizer guns in her top drawer and collapsed on the bed, asleep in seconds.


End file.
